Sammy Salaraga
Sammy Salaraga (1993-January 16, 2016) was a male Fobble employed as a court jester for Empress Zira Miranda Grover. Known for his shrill laugh and sadistic sense of humor, Salaraga started out as little more than vermin on a station in Coahuila during the 2000s, eventually escaping onto a ship belonging to Zira Miranda Grover. When Zira found Salaraga eating from her food bowl, she attempted to shoot him, though the fugitive escaped, covering Zira’s two henchmen with goo in the process. Zira found this extremely amusing, and offered Salaraga a role as her court jester; if Sammy managed to amuse Zira at least once a day, he would be allowed to eat and drink as much as he wished. However, if he failed to do so, he would be killed. For over a dozen years he lived in Zira's Palace, playing many tricks and practical jokes on some of the palace’s regulars, and becoming one of the most disliked members of Zira’s court. He died in 2016, when Zira’s limousine exploded over the Cave of the Gargoyle. Biography Early life Sammy Salaraga was born in Moscow, Russia, and was the cousin of Gilbert Salaraga. He somehow managed to wind up on a station in Coahuila, located on the border of Texas and Mexico. There, Salaraga was treated as lowly vermin, though in truth he was very intelligent. He was, however, a nuisance to those who maintained the station, and eventually they could no longer put up with this parasite, and hired a bounty hunter named Malorra to hunt him down. Salaraga managed to evade Malorra for a time, though eventually, with the mercenary hot on his tail, Salaraga was forced to take refuge in a vessel which had stopped at the station. Although Salaraga was unaware at the time, the ship belonged to Zira Miranda Grover, the extremely wealthy and powerful Empress who operated out of Arizona. Zira was on one of her rare excursions out of town, accompanied by her two most prominent henchmen, Bill Kerve and Jim Newman; she had to settle an important debt on Coahuilan station. While Zira was absent attending to business, Salaraga sneaked aboard his ship, hiding in the Empress’ lavish chambers. Salaraga helped himself to some of Zira’s delicacies, though it was not long before the Empress returned, furious to find another being sitting playfully next to her feeding bowl. Enraged, the Empress attempted to shoot Sammy with the gun emplacements in her throne, though the teenager was far too quick for her, and swiftly evaded her every move. With the bowl sitting precariously on his head, Salaraga darted and lunged from rafter to rafter, until Zira’s two henchmen, Bill Kerve and Jim Newman, entered the room, arguing about something, as was the norm. The two majordomos were preoccupied with their argument to notice that Salaraga was perched right behind them; the mischievous individual dropped the bowl, filled with a brown, chocolate-like substance, directly onto the two’s heads. Covered in the brown goo, Kerve attempted to fire his sidearm at Salaraga, though the goo had interfered with the weapon’s internal workings, and all it did was fire more goo onto Newman. While her henchmen were livid, Zira had taken a liking to the spindly teenager which had stolen onto her ship, and was almost delirious with laughter at the events which Salaraga had caused. Zira managed to stop her men from killing each other, and beckoned for Salaraga to come down and speak with her. The fugitive was offered a job and a future working effectively as Zira’s court jester in her magnificent palace in Arizona. There were, however, strings attached: Salaraga had to make Zira laugh at least once a day — failure to do so would result in Newman and Kerve personally stabbing him. Confident he would be able to entertain Zira daily, Salaraga obliged, and traveled with the Empress and her men back to his palace in Arizona. Court jester Salaraga became something of a fixture in Zira’s court, teasing, mocking and cackling at practically anyone and everyone who visited the palace. He sat at the base of Zira’s throne, sleeping, eating, and mingling when there was nothing to be made fun of. Zira was very fond of the man, though most others were not; Blake longed to disintegrate him, while two of Zira’s most senior subordinates — Epher Vos and Jim Newman — sought to end his life. Salaraga, however, had survived any attempts to end his life, and by 2012, he had retained his position as court jester. He was alongside Zira when Xydarone, a young female bounty hunter, came to the citadel hoping to gain exclusive bounty rights to Helen McKeen, a teenager who owed Zira a large sum of money. It was one of the rare occasions that Salaraga did not attempt to ridicule a guest, though he watched on with interest from Zira’s throne. Although Salaraga spent the majority of his time lounging alongside Zira, he sometimes wandered from there, playing tricks on any guests of Zira’s. He also spent time with Zira’s band, perched behind the musician named Maz Rena; Sammy liked to dance to the music produced by the band. When Zira had unwanted or unwelcome guests, Salaraga served to intimidate them by malevolently repeating any of Zira’s threats. This also made him very unpopular among outsiders. Dealing with Melvin Betanco Sometime during his stay in Zira’s Palace, Salaraga greeted Melvin Betanco, a professor, who was visiting Zira’s Palace in order to get an audience with the Empress, with plans to write a report on Zira. Betanco was to rendezvous with Brian Glickstein, a spy of Lady Valarie — Zira’s largest on-world rival and competitor—who had promised to get him an interview with Zira. In truth, Glickstein had been killed, though Betanco was unaware of this; Salaraga took advantage of the professor’s ignorance. Salacious played on Betanco’s assumption that he was indeed Valarie’s contact, laughing at him and attempting to frighten him, to the extent that the professor had almost fired at him when he first emerged from the shadows of one of the palace’s corridors. However, he did not shoot the court jester, who led him to a dark chamber off the corridor, where Betanco hoped to speak in private with who he erroneously thought was his contact. Though he was initially repulsed by the man, Betanco began to build trust in Salaraga, who was listening to the man’s every words, occasionally offering a repetition of the professor’s words. Betanco misconstrued this as a sign of Salaraga’s agreement with his statements, further indicating that the jester was trustworthy. When Salaraga learned that the visitor’s true contact had guaranteed a meeting with Zira, he offered to Betanco to do so, knowing that the results would most likely be spectacularly entertaining. However, Salaraga’s increasingly common explosions of laughter and screams were beginning to trouble Melvin, and his previous sense of trust was quickly diminishing. When his supposed guide told him that a creature named Sammy Salaraga had ended the life of another professor — Betanco’s superior, Peltan — Melvin Betanco attempted to back out of the deal, though the prospect of authoring a report of the national Empress was too inviting for him to turn down, so he continued following the court jester. When they reached Zira’s Palace, Betanco naïvely announced his name and title, and what he wished to conduct with Zira. As Salaraga had expected, Zira refused, citing that if she told the professor her secrets, any of her rivals could freely examine them. Furious at yet another academic having entered her court, Zira scorned Salaraga, calling him by name. Betanco instantly realized he had been tricked, and that his fate would likely mirror that of Peltan. With Betanco surrounded by guards, Salaraga began to laugh at him, telling him that it was he who had assumed Salaraga was Brian Glickstein, and telling Zira that the professor had insulted him. Betanco still had his gun hidden away, however, and grabbed ahold of Sammy’s throat, sticking the barrel of the weapon forcefully into the man’s nose. Suddenly, however, Zira had a change of mind, and agreed to answer Betanco’s questions. Salaraga watched, perplexed, as the professor’s datapad filled to the brink; with the interview over, Betanco thanked Zira and prepared to depart. The Empress, however, had grown tired of Salaraga’s antics, and this was the second occasion that he had brought academics into the palace in an attempt to amuse the Empress. Zira asked but one thing of Melvin Betanco: to make her laugh. A gleeful Salaraga watched Betanco struggle to think of a joke that would amuse Zira, and when he did, the Empress announced that she had heard it before. Betanco was killed by Zira’s fearsome Beast below her court, though Salaraga had yet to earn his pay by making Zira laugh for that day. He did so by joking on a phrase the late professor had mentioned earlier, “publish or perish.” Zira was amused, and allowed Sammy to continue to act as court jester. Death Sammy Salaraga was present when members of the Armies of Organa rescued Helen McKeen, who was held as a prisoner of the Empress. Petersen overheard Salagara annoying Xydarone IV, who responded with a death threat, when the teenage girl first arrived at the Palace. During the subsequent Battle at the Cave of the Gargoyle, Salaraga was knocked away from GTR-10 by Summer Petersen just before the destruction of Zira’s limousine, while ripping out both of the commander’s eyes. He died in the following explosion. Behind the scenes Sammy curiously does not appear in the graphic novelization of at all. D. Isaac Thomas, via an interview on the Internet, has alluded to several cut scenes from Boys vs. Girls 2 that involved Jessie and Sammy Salaraga. Appearances * * (cut footage) Category:Criminals Category:Males Category:1993 births Category:2016 deaths Category:Battle at the Cave of the Gargoyle fatalities Category:Died in January Category:Russian individuals